The Development of Effective Teamwork - Assignment Example

MANAGEMENT QUESTION 4 i. The development of effective teamwork in the building industry is constrained by the traditional role of the team members. Discuss the above statement and what factors are involved in selecting the ‘right’ team? Traditionally, leadership often formed team processes because the power and authority provided in a single appointed leader who acts as the primary source of information, wisdom, and guidance for team members (Pearce & Conger 125). Consequently, team members do not share the responsibility of providing influence and guidance to one another, and do not contribute in any leadership function within the team even when required. The efficiency of traditional team according to Koeing & Holbrook is oftentimes insufficient since a great deal of the work of the team members is carried out in isolation from each other (10). In an effective team, team members are supposed to coordinate their efforts and share their information skills to be able accept and share roles and responsibilities with another. This is essential because it challenges every member of the team to re-evaluate their traditional roles and value the abilities of one another as they interchange professional roles (Fagan & Warden 168). Another constraint is diversity of team members who traditionally define or frame problems according to their specialties, individual levels of perceptive ability, and world views (Beer 351). These diversities according to Beer can result in ‘virtual tangle’ of interdependent work relationships which more often demonstrated by unproductiveness and ineffective strategies (352). Similarly, traditional reward and compensation being anticipated by individual team members is not proper for a team-based organisation because it is only fitting for individual motivation. In a team, rewards are given for mastery of skills required to meet team goals and based on team performance rather than seniority, individual performance, and job classifications (Griffin & Moorhead 256). According to Griffin & Moorehead, how a company reward its employees is crucial to the lasting success of the organisation (256) and therefore, a team member who is expecting but not getting his reward based on his traditional role would be disappointed and more often than not, his performance deteriorates significantly enough to affect the team performance negatively. In selecting the ‘right’ team, a leader must be careful in identifying and select team members with the proper mix of both leadership and technical skills needed to effectively share leadership roles and responsibilities (Pearce & Conger 125). Team members should be able to perform jobs that require understanding, independence, responsibility, and autonomous decision-making. This is because a real effective team do not require supervision and is able to adapt with the intensity and complexity of their roles (Smith & Flarey 193). Selecting the right people to work on the project means harmonizing the people to the technology and skill roles (Rosenberg et al. 31). Team members must be carefully weighed of their intelligence, familiarity, interpersonal skills and depending on the size, scope, and complexity of the operations, the number of members should be determine cautiously as well. More importantly, select creative people as they are often more attracted in the development of their talents and typically see life as a journey on which they seek to find things that are new and exciting (Whatmore 139). There are many good qualities that a team should have but one very important quality that a leader should seek are those teams with members that never say ‘That’s not my job” (Parker 51). This is because a good and effective team member who become conscious that one of their contemporaries has a particularly complex or time-consuming task volunteered or offers his help. The leader should also look for team member who are good in carrying out orders and feeding information to the team (Cullingworth 27). Generally, a good team according to Fogg is one that can easily understand the task and objective of the group. This is a team where members can maintain a casual or comfortable environment and holds regular pertinent discussions on relevant issues. A team where members listen to each other and discuss disagreements or conflict, and view criticism as positive, honest, common, and comparatively comfortable. More importantly, team members discuss feelings and ideas and the leader does not dominate and always flexible. A quality team examine its operations and decisions that are commonly reached by consensus. Finally, they know how to coordinate their work with other units and hold themselves responsible for the results (258). Overall, a leader should look for a team where members listen well, partake and contribute, represent their own areas of expertise but give up territory issues for the sake of the whole, taka a multifunctional viewpoints on issues, and can set aside their own sense of self and who are bendable, confident, proficient, and wide-ranging. More importantly, besides personal qualities and being team-oriented, team members need a blend of formal training and extensive observation and experienced to be effective in team meetings. ii. The word ‘project’ is currently used to describe a set of linked activities. Identify a set of features that are common for projects and the role of the project manager. The word ‘project’ has gained widespread usage in a large of areas but if ‘project’ is use as a set of linked activities, the principal features of a project may include specific objectives of creating some new entity. It has a defined beginning and finish and contains a large amount of disconnected but inter-reliant tasks. More importantly, it has tasks that require various resources that are typically on an irregular or varying basis (Woodward 1). In managing a project defined this way, a project manager’s role should include facilitating planning, scheduling, and controlling of all activities that must be done to achieve project objectives. In other words, planning, scheduling, and control of work are the management side of his job (Lewis 4). Planning in a project defined as a linked set of activities requires a project manager with planning skills. This is because “not all technical specialists are good planners” (Kerzner 449). The planning phase provides the basic guidelines for the success of the project thus careful management control is required (Kerzner 469). Planning and controlling a project is considered as the “management of cost, resources, and time” (Harrison & Lock 97) extends past the planning and control of the project schedule. This is because activities such as cost management, materials management, design information, quality, safety, and changes to the project are all included in the control process. Planning and control help surmount problems in establishing the project manager’s authority and power. For instance, it can assist inb the development of cooperative working relationships and teamwork by making explicit the interrelationships and interdependencies of the people and groups involve (Harrison & Locks 97). Control of the project requires base points, and the first estimates and schedules are the first base points thus the project manager is required to consider through estimate and schedule requirement carefully during the early stages of the project (Kimmons & Loweree 147). A baseline schedule is therefore developed before or very soon after the start of construction and the project manager’s ability to update and clearly link these updates is vital. This is because if the baseline schedule is the general plan for the entire project and the updated schedule reflects the status of work completed to date (Clough & Sears 256). Similarly, in a project with a set of linked activities, the critical path method is useful for project manager’s in predicting project duration by determining which sequence of activities or path are most likely has the least amount of scheduling flexibility or the least amount of float (Swarbick & Boylan 2316). In general, any competent form of scheduling and control according to Harrison & Lock, will help the project manager to achieve project goals (154) and therefore very important to the success of the project. QUESTION 5 i. State the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of scientific management a. To the worker Scientific management is basically meant for mass market and conceived with the intention of simplifying manufacturing processes and providing jobs with unskilled or those with little or no experience of factory work (Knights & Willmott 386). It is the use of the conservation theory to production as it save energy, materials, and time thus eliminating waste to enhance productivity of men and machinery (Gilbreth 1). For the management of factories, scientific management has a number of good features and one of them is increase in output and lower labour cost for the management. However, to the workers, the only clear advantage of scientific management seems simply being hired unskilled and benefit from training and development. According to Drucker, regardless of scientific management’s global success, it has not do well in solving the problem of managing worker and work (243). This is because most of the features of scientific management tend to favour solely the management and those people who enjoy the idea of repetitive boring work and specialising in one activity with no chance of personal development (Huczynski 13).Scientific management have a number of disadvantages for workers because workers are often bored and disgruntled with the dulling replication of simple job tasks that usually required little deliberation, initiative, or accountability. The skill level required in monotonous, specialized tasks is so small that workers do not have the chance to prove their worth or capacity for advancement. In addition, cyclic tasks requiring similar repetitive physical motions can result in abnormal physical and mental fatigue (Taylor 316). According to Hoxie, scientific management reduces the power of the individual worker against the employer because management only convey craft knowledge bit by bit as it is required in the performance of the specific tasks. Consequently, it limits worker to a specific task or small cycle of tasks where it consequence to the narrowing of a worker’s outlook, skill, and the experience and training which are essential to do the work. A worker is therefore easily displaced and put him on a disadvantage in any effort to question the justice of the demands made upon him. In other words, the unskilled worker under the scientific management loses what little chance of success as a person he may somewhere else have in any dispute with the employer. More importantly, from the competitive power perspective, scientific management downgrade workers to the condition of the unskilled and prevent the development of groups thus weakening the team spirit of workers (104). Scientific management appears to be created for the sole purpose of increasing production and maximising profits because it eliminates consideration for the character, rights and welfare of the employees (Hollway 24). Moreover, it appears to look upon employees as simple instrument of production which reduces the need for brains. It does not democratise the industry as its advocates claim since it lacks the necessary arrangements and machinery for the actual voicing of the worker’s ideas and complaints (Lauck & Sydenstricker 241). b. To the employer Scientific management usually use task fragmentation or breaking complex jobs into simple component parts and determine the most efficient way of performing each part of the work. In addition, the workplace will be designed systematically and tools to be used would be arranged in a way to minimise or limit unnecessary worker’s movements. (Goffee & Scase 74). For the management, according Goffee & Scase, implementing such type of management is a considerable advantage since individuals workers do not need to be given expensive and time consuming training, and those who went away or confirmed to be undependable can easily be changed. Clearly, specialisation in one small task makes people very fast at it and less skilled work is lower paid work. More importantly, it is easy to observe and control workers doing simple activities (75). The disadvantages of this management approach aside from producing bored, dissatisfied, and alienated employees is the inflexibility of plant and equipment which requires massive investment on plant and technology to build. This is because once installed, this production system cannot be change and transferring or re-aligning workers who has relatively fixed skills would be very difficult. Moreover, since both the labour and technology is highly specialised, it would be certainly problematic once the mass market disappear or the product needs to be changed. Similarly, the degree of specialisation and separation of tasks ad functions is also a disadvantage. This is because the unskilled and semi-skilled workers engaged in the production process are not required or able to exercise control over quality and the technology also often does not lend itself to inspection prior to the end of the process. It is possible therefore that this function is either not performed or performed by expensive specialist quality inspection and control function (Leat 42). Work Cited List Beer David F. Writing and Speaking in the Technology Professions: A Practical Guide. US: Wiley-IEEE, 2003 Clough Richard, Glenn A. 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